Paul Farnsworth, 35, of White River Junction, has been charged with receiving iPads that were stolen instead of delivered by a UPS driver who later told investigators he gave them to Farnsworth in exchange for drugs.

WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — A man is accused of buying stolen iPads from a United Parcel Service driver.

Paul Farnsworth, 35, of White River Junction, pleaded not guilty Thursday to a felony charge of possession of stolen property. He also refused to waive extradition to New Hampshire. He is being held on $15,000 bail as a fugitive from that state.

A New Hampshire grand jury indicted Farnsworth in December on a felony bad-check charge alleging that he knowingly cashed a fraudulent $3,000 check at a bank in April.

Farnsworth made headlines across the region 15 years ago when he was accused of shooting a man who was dating his ex-girlfriend. The man survived a gunshot wound to the abdomen; Farnsworth was acquitted of attempted murder.

The new charge stems from an investigation by Hartford police detectives in May. A security supervisor from the UPS depot in Wilder told police that three packages containing iPads and a methadone prescription had disappeared over a period of weeks.

Computer scans showed these packages were loaded onto UPS trucks for delivery but never reached their destinations, police said.

Police said Chad Liles was driving the UPS trucks each time the parcels disappeared. Detective Michael Tkac said a subpoena sent to Apple revealed that one stolen iPad was activated by Farnsworth and another by a relative.

Tkac said Farnsworth voluntarily surrendered all of the missing iPads, but he insisted he didn’t know they were stolen and had paid his friend Liles “several hundred dollars” for them.

Liles allegedly wrote in a statement to police, “I took the iPads because in that period of my life I was addicted to narcotics and I traded them for narcotics. ... I also took the methadone for the same reason.”

There was no discussion during Farnsworth’s arraignment Thursday in White River Junction criminal court as to whether prosecutors plan to file charges against Liles.